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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779492">I Don't Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adams_Riddle/pseuds/Adams_Riddle'>Adams_Riddle</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chamber of Secrets, Harry Needs a Hug, Harry doesn't know he is a Horcrux, Harry is sad, M/M, Mature rating because of dark themes, Oneshot, Tom Is A Dick, Tom totally knows Harry is a Horcrux, Umbridge is only featured briefly as a corpse, a bit angsty, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal Tom, diary!Tom, ft Harry getting kidnapped, one sided HPTMR, such as falling for a teen dark lord, tomarry - Freeform, what if Harry got the diary in his 5th year</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 12:40:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28779492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adams_Riddle/pseuds/Adams_Riddle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Concept: Lucius Malfoy held onto the diary a bit longer than in canon, and it ends up with Harry in his 5th year. More stress on top of Voldemort being back and Umbridge bearing down on him? Can only lead to complicated feelings for Tom Riddle.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Don't Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have more notes on the backstory for this but basically, Harry doesn't know Tom is Voldemort because he never faced Diary!Tom in his second year. He also doesn't know about Horcruxes yet. Most backstory is canon except Harry is Bi and his 5th year is twice as stressful. idk. I hope you enjoy this little angsty oneshot.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>I am only too happy to assist with your Umbridge problem, Harry, you need only trust me.</em>
</p><p>The words came, as always, beautifully scripted compared to the chicken scratch of Harry’s usual rants about the way no one believed him that Voldemort was back, or that Dolores Umbridge had imposed more restrictions over Hogwarts with her Ministry Decrees. The words were perfectly timed, Harry sat in his four-poster bed in his dorm room alone, his hand bleeding from another detention with Umbridge.</p><p>
  <b>What do you need me to do, Tom?</b>
</p><p>Harry wrote the words, but felt helpless – as if nothing would ever change the situation at Hogwarts. Albus had been all but ousted, people were being petrified left and right, and the ministry’s grip on Hogwarts had tightened to a noose in the meantime. Only Tom seemed to have time for Harry now, with his best friend Hermione one of the petrified victims, and his other friend Ron, depressed in her absence. The whole school had already ostracised Harry for telling the truth when Voldemort had risen at the end of his fourth year, and he had been accused several times of being the Heir of Slytherin, or the Dark Lord himself with his ability to speak to snakes. The whole year had taken its toll on the teen, but he at least had opened his heart to the one trapped within the diary, Tom Marvolo Riddle. The one bright star in an endless dark sky. At times, it even felt as though his Godfather, Sirius (whom had escaped Azkaban in his third year to protect him from Peter Pettigrew), had forgotten or forsaken him, they spoke so little.</p><p>
  <em>If you truly trust me, dearest, then you need let me in, and I’ll do the rest.</em>
</p><p>Harry’s heart clenched in both affection and longing, a painful combination in reaction to the thought of the one person he wondered the most about – the most normal thing about Harry Potter, perhaps, was that he was a teen who thought often about being held, perhaps kissed, maybe more, with the object of his affections. He wasn’t sure what his Tom could do, but he knew that he did trust him: with his secrets, with his heart, with everything he had to give. He knew Ron and Hermione would think him stupid to be so attached to someone he had only seen in brief clips of memory provided by the boy trapped in the diary… but it was hard not to be.</p><p><b>I trust you. </b>Harry wrote, then slowly, as if embarrassed by the confession: <b>I love you.</b></p><p>Harry blacked out.</p><p>~</p><p>Consciousness was a sudden thing, one moment he was unaware of himself, the next: sensation of being cold and wet, the room was darkened, everything made of stone – he was on the floor in fact, and it was uncomfortable…</p><p>Wildly he sat up and looked around at the new surroundings, he could hear something moving in the darkness of the stone room – or cavern was more like it – a slithering noise of scales on stone. Whatever it was sounded big. Harry found his glasses in his robe pocket and squinted around for more details. Then he saw it, the only colour in the room. Pink. Umbridge was not too far from him, but laying face down on the floor, stiller than he had ever seen her. Apprehension and concern swirled inside him, he hesitated before crawling a bit closer to her, prodding her in the hopes of finding out what was going on.</p><p>“Professor?” He whispered, confused.</p><p>No response. Harry shuddered and backed away again.</p><p>“She won’t wake.” A familiar voice, but one he’d only heard in memories.</p><p>“Tom!” Harry leapt to his feet as the boy stepped out of the shadows. “What are you doing here? What do you mean she won’t wake? Do you know where we are?”</p><p>Tom Riddle looked as he did at sixteen, Slytherin robe included, prefect badge shining and not a hair out of place. He could have stepped out of one of Harry’s many dreams.</p><p>“Harry,” Tom granted him a polite smile, reaching out a hand to steady Harry as he swayed on the spot, “So many questions you have, but you must still be disoriented. All the clues are here, after all.”</p><p>It was true, the longer Harry looked around, the more details he could see in the relative darkness, outlines of statues that would not be out of place in the Slytherin Dungeons. Pools of water and large pipes. That sound he’d heard and a dull memory, of Tom promising to fix things.</p><p>“What have you done?” Harry demanded, his voice gone from excited and confused, to solemn in a moment.</p><p>Tom put his other hand on Harry’s other arm and closed both hands in a vice-like grip, pulling him chest to chest with the taller boy. Dark eyes pierced bright green in a stare that dissected thought itself. They shifted to a mockery of an embrace, Tom’s arms just a little too tight across Harry’s back, more <em>holding him still </em>than actually embracing. Harry’s hands fluttered across the back of Tom’s robes without committing to holding the boy, he wasn’t sure if Tom was actually real or if he had gone mad.</p><p>“Her life for mine and now, I am free, dearest. No more petrification, no more decrees. No one knows we are here, and we can leave shortly if you wish, you needn’t feel their glares or listen to their words ever again. We’ll just go, you and I.” Tom murmured the words intimately to Harry, keeping up the eye contact, he lifted his hand to Harry’s cheek, ignoring Harry’s flinch when the hand came close, and he caressed pale Harry’s face.</p><p>Harry couldn’t stop his eyes falling shut, so touch-starved, willing Tom to be real, but terrified that the beautiful boy before him had sacrificed his teacher to become real again.</p><p>“How can I go?” Harry managed to say, but the words were hollow, “Hermione is yet to be cured, Voldemort is out there somewhere, no doubt just waiting to make his move on the Wizarding World- Then Sirius, Ron, how can I just- Leave?”</p><p>The hand fell away, Tom’s expression shut down. Harry stumbled as Tom let him go.</p><p>“Is Umbridge dead, Tom?” <em>Did you kill her?</em></p><p>“Clearly.”</p><p>“What I don’t understand is how? From the book to here? It’s unreal, I’m glad you’re free, but murder?” Harry panicked a little, paced slowly, coming to realise he had no wand, and no idea where he was – although it would be a good guess that this was the famed Chamber of Secrets people had accused him of opening.</p><p>“That’s rather hypocritical of you, dearest. After all, it was you who killed poor Hagrid’s roosters.” Tom revealed, smiling widely and starting to pace around Harry in a tight circle, “You set my dear pet on the mudbloods in the school too, but you might not remember those parts. Nonetheless… This year, you’ve no doubt done Lord Voldemort very proud.”</p><p>Harry’s panic reached a peak, he couldn’t breathe, Tom had to be lying – this had to be a nightmare, or a false vision from Voldemort, this couldn’t be real.</p><p>“No, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t!” Harry pleaded, falling to his knees.</p><p>“Oh, but you did, and you did very well at setting up the ritual for the life transfer to take place, really, I just gave you the nudge you needed to solve your own problems.” Tom stopped pacing and reached for Harry again.</p><p>“Don’t touch me!” Harry shouted, flinching backwards. Tom got down on his knees too, and pulled Harry onto his lap, finding it easy to subdue the Boy-Who-Lived. He stoked Harry’s hair back with a soothing smile, exposing Harry’s scar.</p><p>“Ah, my soul.”</p><p>Harry flushed in anger at the fond tone, “Don’t call me that, I… I don’t even know who you are, do I? Not really?”</p><p>Tom continued to hold him, stroking his hair back and looking only at the scar on his head.</p><p>“Your lack of parental figures in your life really makes you vulnerable to the littlest bit of affection really, I’m surprised no one took advantage before. Alas, I’m glad you saved your heart for me.” Tom’s words were like knives, Harry wanted to use them to carve out his own heart, feeling used and shamed and hating that he liked how it felt to be held.</p><p>“Who are you?” Harry demanded again.</p><p>“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” The boy scoffed, drawing Harry’s wand from his robe pocket to spell the name in the air, then rearranging them to show: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.</p><p>“No... It can’t be.” Harry cried, “I love...d you.”</p><p>“Silly boy,” Tom smiled at him, “I don’t love.”</p><p>The tears couldn’t be stopped, Harry gave into them until Tom cast a silent stunner to put Harry back to sleep. Tears continued to streak down his face even afterwards. Tom’s face went blank, he stood and faced Umbridge’s body, transfiguring it into a doe and summoning the basilisk back.</p><p>“<em>Happy dinner. I’ll be taking this one with me, the school is yours, precious.” </em>Tom hissed to the large snake, who happily took the carcass off to its nest to eat later.</p><p>Tom took his prefect badge off his chest and cast “<em>Portus</em>.” From there he grabbed Harry’s hand and activated the portkey.</p><p>“Don’t worry, my soul,” Tom told Harry’s unconscious form as they left the Chamber, “You will be well protected, no matter what. You will never die.”</p><p>~</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yeahhh it's a bit rough, but for a oneshot hopefully not bad? Hope you liked it! Please leave a comment if you did! Or if not, feel free to explain why! Many thanks~</p></blockquote></div></div>
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